Come on folks, even IE has a Content Advisor (although I don't know how many folks actually use it), so is this such a big surprise?
It's a good marketing idea for Microsoft too, because like it or not, this will allow them to sell it to the same parents who are using their V-Chip enabled TVs and Content controlled DVD players. Of course we know that none of the software providers are actually using these features, so if it can get MS one more sale then they're going to offer it.
The FCC ruling doesn't say you can put up an antenna anywhere.
Over 66% of the US population gets their TV exclusively over cable. You don't think those folks would want to change to something, anything else? I surely would.
The fact of the matter is you have to have access to a private area. Unfortunately, those of us who live in shared dwellings, apts, condos without balconies, etc. don't usually have a private area to put up an antenna. Most rental agreements specifically state that you can't modify the outside of the building in any way, and if you don't have access to the roof, you're shot.
This is why you'll see many condo dwellers mounting their dish in a cement block in the middle of their balconies, because they're not allowed to mount it to the rail or have it extend past that point.
Instead of spending time figuring out how to put more crap into orbit shouldn't someone be working on getting folks around more efficiently?
As I understand it, no one has yet claimed the prize from the US Gov't for being the first commercial operation to put 12 civilians in orbit. The "Space Plane" program the Regan administration was pushing back in the 80's has never come to fruition. Why is it so hard for any private or commercial organization to launch their own satellites much less put people into orbit?
You have some pretty good points, but when I was asking why the film was released to begin with, I was speaking in generalities.
I know there was a substantial investment in the film, time and money, but that doesn't justify releasing it if it's crap. Well, maybe in the minds of the investors it does.
The fans pretty much agreed that the film was crap. I even remember standing in line waiting to see this flick (I was 11) and wondering what the big deal was about when it was over.
Ah yes, if only the anonymous masses would take some time a use a dictionary...
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=l ic ence
That my friends will be the last comment I make on usage and grammar in this thread. I find it lamentable that so many folks would rather correct, scold, and criticize than take an active role in the discussion.
This begs the question, "So why was it released to begin with?"
Sure, it's great that the director gets to go back and see his vision fulfilled 20yrs later, but this marks a disturbing trend in Hollywood films. Not only do we get a different Star Trek:TMP, but we get a new and improved The Exorcist, a brand spanking new Star Wars, where does it end?
I own a DC, I love it, but it's pretty clear where Sega is going with this. They are looking to get out of the business. Who will this sort of Set-top-box device appeal to? Hotel owners. A closed box with no GD-ROM drive (which is supposedly backwards compatible?) and the games are an afterthought, which will be set-up on a Pay-per-play basis, with a built in cable-modem for web-surfing on the side.
What software developer is going to develop for a box like this? None of them. Old games will be downloaded to the HD and stored there. The hotel crowd will probably get a kick out of Chu-Chu Rocket and Tetris.
Is Sega that strapped for cash that they have to start selling off the DC technology to anyone who wants it? Rumors are flying about a soon to be $99 Dreamcast. If true this would only confirm my suspicion that Sega is looking to clear out old inventory and get out.
Yes folks, I am an early adopter.
(Some might also say I paid $400 to beta test for Hauppauge, but that's another story)
HDTV is beautiful. Those who haven't seen it are the ones who think it's not worth the bother. I don't have a great setup either, basically just a 2nd hand Panasonic 30" 16:9 monitor I purchased over Ebay (with lots burn-in, sigh) my PC and the Hauppauge WinTV-HD. After seeing this I'd say it's definately worth it just to display on a larger PC monitor, say 19" or larger. I can only imagine what it will look like on a progressive RPTV.
I watched my first ever football game last week on CBS and was amazed at how sharp and clear things were. CBS clearly leads the way with original Hi-definition programing. You just have to see Football or a sitcom like Raymond in Hi-def to see what you've been missing.
The only thing is I live in an apartment. I use a plain old Rat-Shack UHF Double-Bowtie for reception. I can receive the 3 networks and Fox, that's it. I can't put up an antenna of any type. My cable company won't carry any HDTV, not even the local channels so the other 4 aren't available to me, not to mention the premium HBO-HD and SHO-HD channels.
Most folks are in the same situation as I am. Over 60% of the US population gets their TV reception exclusively from cable tv. If cable doesn't carry HDTV it will fail. Simple as that.
While the artifiacts are clearly visible it's still excellent. Nevertheless, that 750k stream is the best looking stream of realtime video I've ever seen over my 1.5mbps cablemodem, and that includes some 1mpbs MP7 streams. They must have used a very high quality source for that sample.
If you have a high bandwidth connection the 750k stream looks quite impressive. Almost DVD quality. The audio demo is quite good as well, sounding much better than mp3 encoding at the same data rate.
There's a beta version of the encoder available from MS if anyone wants to fool around with it.
Being that most folks in the US are apartment dwellers and can't put up an antenna, we have to rely on cable as our sole form of TV delivery.(somewhere over 60% of US gets TV over cable) This is why HDTV will never succeed untill the FCC forces the cable co's to carry local HDTV channels.
Don't get into that FCC antenna rule nonsense. It might apply to folks with condos and balconies, but most of us don't even have access to the roof, so that's out.
Is this thing coming out on DVD? I love Dune, but my cable reception looks like shit, and I don't intend on suffering through 6 hours of trying to figure out what the hell is going on...
Slashdot Mirror
Come on folks, even IE has a Content Advisor (although I don't know how many folks actually use it), so is this such a big surprise?
It's a good marketing idea for Microsoft too, because like it or not, this will allow them to sell it to the same parents who are using their V-Chip enabled TVs and Content controlled DVD players. Of course we know that none of the software providers are actually using these features, so if it can get MS one more sale then they're going to offer it.
The FCC ruling doesn't say you can put up an antenna anywhere.
Over 66% of the US population gets their TV exclusively over cable. You don't think those folks would want to change to something, anything else? I surely would.
The fact of the matter is you have to have access to a private area. Unfortunately, those of us who live in shared dwellings, apts, condos without balconies, etc. don't usually have a private area to put up an antenna. Most rental agreements specifically state that you can't modify the outside of the building in any way, and if you don't have access to the roof, you're shot.
This is why you'll see many condo dwellers mounting their dish in a cement block in the middle of their balconies, because they're not allowed to mount it to the rail or have it extend past that point.
Instead of spending time figuring out how to put more crap into orbit shouldn't someone be working on getting folks around more efficiently?
As I understand it, no one has yet claimed the prize from the US Gov't for being the first commercial operation to put 12 civilians in orbit. The "Space Plane" program the Regan administration was pushing back in the 80's has never come to fruition. Why is it so hard for any private or commercial organization to launch their own satellites much less put people into orbit?
You have some pretty good points, but when I was asking why the film was released to begin with, I was speaking in generalities.
I know there was a substantial investment in the film, time and money, but that doesn't justify releasing it if it's crap. Well, maybe in the minds of the investors it does.
The fans pretty much agreed that the film was crap. I even remember standing in line waiting to see this flick (I was 11) and wondering what the big deal was about when it was over.
Yes, and before you correct me on my correction of the correction, I know there's a typo.
That will be my absolutely last comment. Heh.
Ah yes, if only the anonymous masses would take some time a use a dictionary...
l ic ence
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=
That my friends will be the last comment I make on usage and grammar in this thread. I find it lamentable that so many folks would rather correct, scold, and criticize than take an active role in the discussion.
Not in the context I used it. You can take creative licence with the English language every once in a while, not everything has to be perfect.
Instead of correcting grammar how about adding something usefull to the discussion?
So just what exactly are we seeing?
This begs the question, "So why was it released to begin with?"
Sure, it's great that the director gets to go back and see his vision fulfilled 20yrs later, but this marks a disturbing trend in Hollywood films. Not only do we get a different Star Trek:TMP, but we get a new and improved The Exorcist, a brand spanking new Star Wars, where does it end?
The bandwidth is useless if the content is lacking.
It was debatable whether Diamond had any tech support to begin with.
If this is the best name the ad guys could come up with they should ask for a refund.
I can hear the nicknames now, "Sonic Shoe", "Cronic Flu" etc, and the ever favorite for the former "lack of tech support dept" at Diamond/S3:
Sonic Screw
I own a DC, I love it, but it's pretty clear where Sega is going with this. They are looking to get out of the business. Who will this sort of Set-top-box device appeal to? Hotel owners. A closed box with no GD-ROM drive (which is supposedly backwards compatible?) and the games are an afterthought, which will be set-up on a Pay-per-play basis, with a built in cable-modem for web-surfing on the side.
What software developer is going to develop for a box like this? None of them. Old games will be downloaded to the HD and stored there. The hotel crowd will probably get a kick out of Chu-Chu Rocket and Tetris.
Is Sega that strapped for cash that they have to start selling off the DC technology to anyone who wants it? Rumors are flying about a soon to be $99 Dreamcast. If true this would only confirm my suspicion that Sega is looking to clear out old inventory and get out.
Knock yourselves out.
Yes folks, I am an early adopter.
(Some might also say I paid $400 to beta test for Hauppauge, but that's another story)
HDTV is beautiful. Those who haven't seen it are the ones who think it's not worth the bother. I don't have a great setup either, basically just a 2nd hand Panasonic 30" 16:9 monitor I purchased over Ebay (with lots burn-in, sigh) my PC and the Hauppauge WinTV-HD. After seeing this I'd say it's definately worth it just to display on a larger PC monitor, say 19" or larger. I can only imagine what it will look like on a progressive RPTV.
I watched my first ever football game last week on CBS and was amazed at how sharp and clear things were. CBS clearly leads the way with original Hi-definition programing. You just have to see Football or a sitcom like Raymond in Hi-def to see what you've been missing.
The only thing is I live in an apartment. I use a plain old Rat-Shack UHF Double-Bowtie for reception. I can receive the 3 networks and Fox, that's it. I can't put up an antenna of any type. My cable company won't carry any HDTV, not even the local channels so the other 4 aren't available to me, not to mention the premium HBO-HD and SHO-HD channels.
Most folks are in the same situation as I am. Over 60% of the US population gets their TV reception exclusively from cable tv. If cable doesn't carry HDTV it will fail. Simple as that.
There are major problems with Quicktime's implementation on Windows. That, and mainly that keeps it from being a contender.
That's a pretty big hurdle considering that Windows machine are almost the whole market.
Yeah, I'd have to agree with the DVD comment.
While the artifiacts are clearly visible it's still excellent. Nevertheless, that 750k stream is the best looking stream of realtime video I've ever seen over my 1.5mbps cablemodem, and that includes some 1mpbs MP7 streams. They must have used a very high quality source for that sample.
The audio is excellent too.
For those of you who want to see some truly amazing advancements in Microsoft's utilization of the Mpeg4 codec, go check out this page:
n /c ompare/video.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/e
If you have a high bandwidth connection the 750k stream looks quite impressive. Almost DVD quality. The audio demo is quite good as well, sounding much better than mp3 encoding at the same data rate.
There's a beta version of the encoder available from MS if anyone wants to fool around with it.
I was refering to man-made satellites.
Granted someone else probably would have come up with the idea, but Clarke did it first and won a Nobel prize for it.
Think of the repercussions of this one idea, and all that's come from it.
Do I really need to list them? While he hasn't been "right on" on many of his predictions he's been so close as to not matter.
I think most of the folks who read Slashdot know enough about Clarke to know that without him the communication age we live in now would not exist.
What else is there to say? If you bothered reading his books you would know what I was talking about. "Read? Uh, what's that?"
You know, all this money could be saved if they just went to Sri Lanka and asked Arthur C. Clarke what's exactly out there.
He's predicted so many things during his long literary career it's eerie.
I'm pretty sure the DC can also output 800*600 with the VGA box, the games just have to support it.
Being that most folks in the US are apartment dwellers and can't put up an antenna, we have to rely on cable as our sole form of TV delivery.(somewhere over 60% of US gets TV over cable) This is why HDTV will never succeed untill the FCC forces the cable co's to carry local HDTV channels.
Don't get into that FCC antenna rule nonsense. It might apply to folks with condos and balconies, but most of us don't even have access to the roof, so that's out.
So I'll just have to wait for the DVD...
Are you serious?
The Advertising industry's idea of a tastefull campaign is akin to:
"Excuse me sir, do you have any Grey Poupon?".
Is this thing coming out on DVD? I love Dune, but my cable reception looks like shit, and I don't intend on suffering through 6 hours of trying to figure out what the hell is going on...
This guy's been hitting the saki a little bit too hard...